The Meet the Chefs event, now entering its fourth year, will be taking over Carmine St. on Sat., Sept. 17. The food celebration, run by the Carmine Street Block Association, CASBA for short, will feature some 40 restaurants, serving up their house specialities.

David Gruber, president of CASBA, said that this year's event will be the largest to date. Although he said the event could potentially host more than 100 restaurants, CASBA was really trying to limit Meet The Chefs to the eateries in the south part of the Village. They did, however, extend a special invitation to Lilac Chocolates, which will bring a chocolate fountain. This novel fountain will be a free-flowing continuous waterfall of liquid chocolate that allows people to coat plates of strawberries, marshmallows and other goodies with rich chocolate.

New participants include Yumcha, Wildflower, the newly opened Maroon's Smoke Shack and the Waverly at the IFC bistro. The Neapolitan pizza chefs from No. 28 Pizza on Carmine St. will perform their famous pizza dough-tossing routine that is usually only seen at the World's Best Pizza Competition in Italy

Last year, close to $25,000 was given away from the proceeds to various schools and other Village organizations, including the Caring Community, Washington Square Music Festival and others. Food service begins at 11:30 a.m. and continues until 3:30 p.m. Sample servings cost $5 each.